


calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -

by iphigenias



Category: Anne with an E (TV)
Genre: Coming Out, Gen, Growing Up, Period-Typical Homophobia, soft bisexual diana barry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-07
Updated: 2018-08-07
Packaged: 2019-06-23 06:27:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15600315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iphigenias/pseuds/iphigenias
Summary: Cole and Diana part ways.





	calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -

**Author's Note:**

> this is hopefully going to be part of a much longer sapphic diana au but with uni being so busy I don't know when or if I'll have time to write it so I wanted to just get this little prologue piece out in the world. it's a slight au from the last episode of season 2 in which cole returns home to get his things in order before setting out to live in charlottetown. just let my son be happy plea s e

_You do not have to be good._  
_You do not have to walk on your knees_  
_for a hundred miles through the desert repenting._  
_You only have to let the soft animal of your body_  
_love what it loves._  
_Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine._

Diana finds Cole by the cliffs. Her steps from the schoolhouse to here had almost taken her right by their old clubhouse—but then Diana had remembered what happened there, and veered her path so it would stay out of sight. Anne told her Cole would be here, staring out at the waves, already imagining his new life in Charlottetown with Aunt Josephine, away from the stifling attitudes and nosy townspeople of Avonlea—but away from the cliffs, and the woods, and the rolling hills, too.

Diana doesn’t know if she could ever leave this place, but it is her greatest wish to see Cole try. He was always more than a farm boy, after all.

When she reaches the open grassy plain, she sees him at first from a distance and in this afternoon, sinking sun light he could almost be one of the romantical heroes from Anne’s tales. He is tall enough, for sure, and the sun glints off his hair like it is spun gold. The illusion is ruined as Diana steps closer and Cole sharpens into stark relief—but the memory is there, soft and unassuming, and Diana prods at it like a freshly formed bruise.

He turns to her before she can say anything to announce her presence, and smiles. “Anne told you I was leaving then?”

“She did,” Diana replies. “On the first train tomorrow. Aunt Josephine will be so happy to have some company—you must say hello for me.”

“Of course I will.” Cole turns back around to face the sea as Diana steps up beside him. The wind is kind today, and tugs at her hair but a little. “I’m sorry to be leaving you behind.”

“Nonsense,” Diana laughs, nudging his arm with her elbow which makes him laugh as well. “You belong in the city, Cole. It is so much bigger than Avonlea—not just in size, but in _ideas_. People do things there every day that I couldn’t possibly imagine. Being there often feels like stepping into a dream.”

“A good dream, I hope,” Cole says. They watch the ocean for a while—it is gentle today, and a bright, abiding blue that Diana knows Cole itches to recreate with a paintbrush. Blue rather like Anne’s eyes, though the ocean could never hope to hold such depth of feeling in its waters as her bosom friend holds in her heart. Cole clears his throat, conjuring the image of Anne away, and looks across at her. “Diana—I don’t wish to cause you pain, but I was wondering—the last time you were at your Aunt Josephine’s, I recall you were concerned about her relationship with Gertrude. You called it…”

“Unnatural,” Diana finishes with a sigh. “Yes, I’m well aware of my foolish words.”

“Then… you do not still feel that way?” Cole asks softly.

“I do not,” Diana says, twisting her hands in the front of her dress. Mother will make a fuss about how it has been rumpled, but Diana cannot bring herself to care right now. “I feel ashamed of ever having felt that way, but, well, it was all so new to me, you see. It is hard to see something one way when all your life you have been made to believe it was another.”

“I understand,” Cole says. “And if I may? What matters is how you think and feel now—that’s the Diana standing here today, not the Diana of yesterday, or two months ago, or last year. She doesn’t matter anymore and neither do the things she thought or felt if they have… since changed. For the better, I hope.”

Diana smiles. She likes the thought of that. “Definitely for the better.”

“I’m… glad.” Cole takes a deep, fortifying breath. “I didn’t want to leave without telling you, but I had to make sure you would understand.”

“Understand what?”

“I’m… like Josephine, Diana. But with boys, instead of girls.” Cole looks red in the face, but it might just be the sun. Diana herself feels rather light-headed, but she smiles at Cole all the same, unable to bear it if he thought ill of her again.

“I’m so glad you told me, Cole. I—” Diana breaks off, chewing her lip in a terrible habit she no doubt picked up from Anne. Her thoughts are a jumble of emotions she isn’t sure she’s brave enough to share with anyone—but then Cole was brave, and Diana has always drawn her strength from others. She squares her shoulders and looks at him—he is still looking at her, waiting for her to finish her sentence. “I am too,” she says softly, the admittance taking an unbearable weight off of her heart she hadn’t even realised was there until it was gone. “Like you and Josephine, I mean. Only… I still like boys too. I think. Is that allowed? It’s all still so confusing I—I barely know when it came about.”

Cole is smiling at her so wide it must hurt. “Oh, Diana. May I hug you?” When she nods, quick and abrupt as she furiously holds back the tears that have so inconveniently sprung to her eyes, Cole steps forward to embrace her, his long arms wrapping around her shoulders tight and warm. Diana hugs him back, as hard as she dares, and when they break apart she does not feel like crying anymore, though surely those are tears that feel wet on her cheeks—she feels like laughing, like she could split the world open as a peach, and pluck the stone from within like it was a precious jewel. She does laugh, then—what flights of fancy her mind has taken of late—this must be what it feels like to be Anne. Cole joins her and somehow they end up sinking into the grass, his legs stretched out before him, Diana lying at a right angle with her head in his lap.

“Thank you for telling me,” he says, running his hands through her hair.

“Thank me?” Diana laughs again—she cannot seem to help it. “I should be the one thanking you, Cole—you gave me the greatest gift of all.”

“And what is that?” Cole asks, and Diana grabs his hand to hold it in hers, so he can feel the beat of her pulse as she tells him the truth.

“Courage,” she says, smiling tremulously and suddenly feeling like crying all over again. Cole squeezes her hand, almost so tight it hurts, but Diana makes no move to let go and neither does he.

“Courage,” he says, looking out across at the ocean once more—and Diana knows he is thinking of tomorrow, of packing his bags and boarding his train and perhaps never coming back to Avonlea, never coming back to the only home he has ever known because it is the city, the great, wide, imposing city, full of impossible dreams and improbable destinies, to which he truly belongs—Diana knows he is thinking of a day in the future, hopefully not too distant, where he may share some of the love Josephine held dear all her life—and Diana cannot help thinking of it too, carefully, delicately, like she is nursing a baby bird back to health—and the ocean is spread out blue before them, blue like Anne’s eyes and the ribbon round her plaits, and it speaks to them of everything out there in the great wide peach of a world, everything that could be theirs for the taking if they only just—

_Meanwhile the world goes on._  
_Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of rain_  
_are moving across the landscapes,_  
_over the prairies and the deep trees,_  
_the mountains and the rivers._  
_Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,_  
_are heading home again._  
_Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,_  
_the world offers itself to your imagination,_  
_calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -_  
_over and over announcing your place_  
_in the family of things._

**Author's Note:**

> beginning and ending quotes as well as the title are from my favourite poem in the world, mary oliver's 'wild geese'
> 
> and yes, if you read that diana has a crush on anne in this - you're right.


End file.
